Chandra X-Ray Observatory Captures Breathtaking New Images

 

The images feature data from the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory along with a host of other NASA telescopes including the James Webb Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope and more.

Top row:

N79 is a giant region of star formation in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite neighbor galaxy to the Milky Way. Chandra sees the hot gas created by young stars, which helps astronomers better understand how stars like our Sun formed billions of years ago. [X-rays from Chandra (purple) and infrared data from Webb (blue, grey and gold)]

NGC 2146 is a spiral galaxy with one of its dusty arms obscuring the view of its center from Earth.. X-rays from Chandra reveal double star systems and hot gas being expelled from the galaxy by supernova explosions and strong winds from giant stars. [X-rays from Chandra (pink and purple), optical data from Hubble and the Las Cumbres Observatory in Chile and infrared data from NSF’s Kitt Peak (red, green and blue)]

IC 348 is a star-forming region in our Milky Way galaxy. The wispy structures that dominate the image are interstellar material that reflects light from the cluster’s stars. The point-like sources in Chandra’s X-ray data are young stars forming in the cluster. [X-rays from Chandra (red, green and blue) and Webb infrared data (pink, orange and purple)]

Middle row:

M83, a spiral galaxy similar to the Milky Way, is oriented face-on toward Earth, providing an unobstructed view of its entire structure that is often not possible with galaxies viewed atdifferent angles. Chandra has detected the explosions of stars, or supernovas, and their aftermath across M83. [X-rays from Chandra (red, green and blue) with ground-based optical data (pink, gold and gray)].

M82 is a so-called starburst galaxy where stars are forming at rates tens to hundreds of times higher than normal galaxies. Chandra sees supernovas that produce expanding bubbles of multimillion-degree gas that extend for millions of light-years away from the galaxy's disk. [X-rays from Chandra (purple) with Hubble optical data (red, green, and blue)]

NGC 1068 is a relatively nearby spiral galaxy containing a black hole at its center that is twice as massive as the one in the Milky Ways. Chandra shows a million-mile-per-hour wind is being driven from NGC 1068’s black hole which lights (?) up the center of the galaxy in X-rays. [X-rays from Chandra (blue), radio data from NSF’s VLA radio data (pink), and optical data from Hubble and Webb (yellow, grey and gold)]

Bottom row:

NGC 346 is a young cluster home to thousands of newborn stars. The cluster’s most massive stars createpowerful winds and produce intense radiation. X-rays from Chandra reveal output from massive stars in the cluster and diffuse emission from a supernova remnant, the glowing debris of an exploded star. [X-rays from Chandra (purple) with optical and ultraviolet from Hubble blue, brown and gold)]

IC 1623 is a system where two galaxies are erging. As the galaxies collide, they trigger new bursts of star formation that glow intensely in certain kinds of light which is detected by Chandara and other telescopesThe merging galaxies may also be in the process of forming a supermassive black hole. [X-rays from Chandra (magenta) with Webb infrared data (red, gold and gray)]

Westerlund 1 is the biggest and closest “super” star cluster to Earth. Data from Chandra and other telescopes is helping astronomers delve deeper into this galactic factory where stars are being produced at extraordinarily high rates. Observations from Chandra have uncovered thousands of individual stars pumping out X-ray emission into the cluster. [X-rays from Chandra (pink, blue, purple and orange) with Webb infrared data (yellow, gold and blue) and Hubble optical data (cyan, grey and light yellow)]

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's Chandra X-ray Center, part of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.

Source: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA)/News

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Media Contact:

Megan Watzke
Chandra X-Ray Observatory
mwatzke@cfa.harvard.edu

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Image Credits:

NGC 2146: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI and NOIRLab/NSF/AURA; Infrared: NSF/NOAO/KPNO; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare

IC 348: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Infrared: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Major

M83: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NASA/ESA/AURA/STScI, Hubble Heritage Team, W. Blair (STScI/Johns Hopkins University) and R. O'Connell (University of Virginia); Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare

M82: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical/IR: NASA/ESA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Major

NGC 1068: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical/IR: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI (HST and JWST); Radio: NSF/NRAO/VLA; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Schmidt and N. Wolk

NGC 346: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical/IR: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI (HST and JWST); Radio: NSF/NRAO/VLA; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Schmidt and N. Wolk

IC 1623: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; IR: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare and J. Major

Westerlund 1: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI; IR: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare

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Mystery of Star Formation Revealed by Hearts of Molecular Clouds

Research on the far edge of galaxy M83 reveals unusual star formation in an extreme environment. This area, outlined in yellow, is shown in data from several different instruments. From left to right: optical image from CTIO, ultraviolet image from GALEX, HI 21cm image from VLA and GBT, and CO(3-2) image from ALMA. In this last image, the star-forming “hearts” of molecular clouds, circled with white, are shown. Credit: J. Koda et al. Large Image

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Data from the world's largest radio telescopes holds clues

An international team of astronomers has revealed mysterious star formation at the far edge of the galaxy M83. This research was presented today in a press conference at the 243rd American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana.

The research used several instruments, including the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) and the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) from NRAO, along with the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan's (NAOJ) Subaru Telescope and the NASA Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX).

Commonly, new stars form due to diffuse atomic gas shrinking into concentrations of molecular gas, called molecular clouds, whose high-density cores at their center trigger star formation. This process is expected in the inner part of galaxies but becomes increasingly rare toward galaxy outskirts.

Mónica Rubio, astronomer from Universidad de Chile and part of the research team, finds it "exciting to discover this small molecular cloud so far from the optical edge of M83 and exposed to a high field of ultraviolet radiation." She further explains that "ALMA's unprecedented sensitivity and resolving power made this discovery possible. It shows that these molecular clouds are not resolved at 6 pc resolution. They are even smaller! This is great."

A surprising number of very young stars exist at the far edges of many galaxies, but scientists could not understand how and why these stars were made because they could not pinpoint their formation sites. This research discovered 23 molecular clouds that showed a different type of star formation. The large bodies of these clouds were not visible like "normal" molecular clouds—only their star-forming dense cores, the "hearts" of the clouds, were observed. This discovery provides an essential clue to understanding the physical processes that generally lead to star formation.

"The star formation at galaxy edges has been a nagging mystery since their discovery by the NASA GALEX satellite 18 years ago," said astronomer Jin Koda of Stony Brook University, who led this research, "Previous searches for molecular clouds in this environment turned out unsuccessful." David Thilker of Johns Hopkins University, who originally discovered the star formation activity occurring in the outskirts of M83 and other galaxies, commented, "It has been gratifying to see the search for dense clouds associated with the outer disk finally come to fruition, revealing a characteristically different observational fingerprint for the molecular clouds."

The revelation of these molecular clouds uncovered a link to an extensive reservoir of diffuse atomic gas, another discovery of this research. Typically, atomic gas condenses into dense molecular clouds, where even denser cores develop and form stars. This process is in operation even at galaxy edges, but the conversion of this atomic gas to molecular clouds was not evident for reasons that are yet unresolved.

Amanda Lee, an undergraduate student on Koda's research team, processed GBT & VLA data for these findings. Through this, she discovered the atomic gas reservoir at the galaxy's edge. "We still do not understand why this atomic gas does not efficiently become dense molecular clouds and form stars." As is often the case in astronomy, pursuing answers to one mystery can lead to another. "That's why research in astronomy is exciting," adds Lee, who is now pursuing her Ph.D. in astronomy at UMass Amherst.

Thilker added, "I am excited to see this new opportunity leveraged more broadly in the outer disk environment in order to gain a deeper insight for physical processes central to the inside-out growth of galaxies still happening in the current cosmic epoch.'

"When I started, I didn't know what role my work would play. It was very exciting to see it contribute to the big picture of star formation," said Lee.

Source: ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array)/Press Releases

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Additional Information

Watch the press conference here.

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), an ALMA partner on behalf of North America, published the original press release.

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international astronomy facility, is a partnership of the European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO), the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) of Japan in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. ALMA is funded by ESO on behalf of its Member States, by NSF in cooperation with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), and by NINS in cooperation with the Academia Sinica (AS) in Taiwan and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI).

ALMA construction and operations are led by ESO on behalf of its Member States; by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), managed by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI), on behalf of North America; and by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) on behalf of East Asia. The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) provides the unified leadership and management of the construction, commissioning, and operation of ALMA.

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Contacts:

Nicolás Lira
Education and Public Outreach Coordinator
Joint ALMA Observatory, Santiago - Chile
Phone: +56 2 2467 6519
Cel: +56 9 9445 7726
Email: nicolas.lira@alma.cl

Jill Malusky
Public Information Officer
NRAO
Phone: +1 304-456-2236
Email: jmalusky@nrao.edu

Naoko Inoue
EPO officer, ALMA Project
National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ)
Email: naoko.inoue@nao.ac.jp

Bárbara Ferreira
ESO Media Manager
Garching bei München, Germany
Phone: +49 89 3200 6670
Email: press@eso.org

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NASA's Spitzer, Hubble Find "Twins" of Superstar Eta Carinae in Other Galaxies

Eta Carinae's great eruption in the 1840s created the billowing Homunculus Nebula, imaged here by Hubble, and transformed the binary into a unique object in our galaxy. Astronomers cannot yet explain what caused this eruption. The discovery of likely Eta Carinae twins in other galaxies will help scientists better understand this brief phase in the life of a massive star. Credits: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team.

The nearby spiral galaxy M83 is currently the only one known to host two potential Eta Carinae twins. This composite of images from the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3 instrument shows a galaxy ablaze with newly formed stars. A high rate of star formation increases the chances of finding massive stars that have recently undergone an Eta Carinae-like outburst. Bottom: Insets zoom into Hubble data to show the locations of M83's Eta twins. Credits: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) and R. Khan (GSFC and ORAU). Hi-res image

In a follow-on survey in 2015, the team found two candidate Eta twins in the galaxy M83, located 15 million light-years away, and one each in NGC 6946, M101 and M51, located between 18 and 26 million light-years away. These five objects mimic the optical and infrared properties of Eta Carinae, indicating that each very likely contains a high mass star buried in five to 10 solar masses of gas and dust. Further study will let astronomers more precisely determine their physical properties. The findings were published in the Dec. 20 edition of The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Researchers found likely Eta twins in four galaxies by comparing the infrared and optical brightness of each candidate source. Infrared images from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope revealed the presence of warm dust surrounding the stars. Comparing this information with the brightness of each source at optical and near-infrared wavelengths as measured by instruments on Hubble, the team was able to identify candidate Eta Carinae-like objects. Top: 3.6-micron images of candidate Eta twins from Spitzer's IRAC instrument. Bottom: 800-nanometer images of the same sources from various Hubble instruments. Credits: NASA, ESA, and R. Khan (GSFC and ORAU)

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, set to launch in late 2018, carries an instrument ideally suited for further study of these stars. The Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) has 10 times the angular resolution of instruments aboard Spitzer and is most sensitive at the wavelengths where Eta twins shine brightest. 

"Combined with Webb's larger primary mirror, MIRI will enable astronomers to better study these rare stellar laboratories and to find additional sources in this fascinating phase of stellar evolution," said Sonneborn, NASA's project scientist for Webb telescope operations. It will take Webb observations to confirm the Eta twins as true relatives of Eta Carinae.

The Spitzer Space Telescope is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena conducts science operations. 

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy in Washington, D.C.

For more information about Spitzer, visit:  http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer
For more information about Hubble, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/hubble

Francis Reddy
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland

 Source: NASA/Solar System and Beyond

New fast and furious black hole found

Nearby spiral galaxy M83 and the MQ1 system with jets, as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope. The blue circle marks the position of the MQ1 system in the galaxy (shown inset). Image Credits: M83 - NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (WFC3/UVIS, STScI-PRC14-04a).MQ1 inset - W. P. Blair (Johns Hopkins University) & R. Soria (ICRAR-Curtin). Click here to enlarge

A team of Australian and American astronomers have been studying nearby galaxy M83 and have found a new superpowered small black hole, named MQ1, the first object of its kind to be studied in this much detail.

Astronomers have found a few compact objects that are as powerful as MQ1, but have not been able to work out the size of the black hole contained within them until now.

The team observed the MQ1 system with multiple telescopes and discovered that it is a standard-sized small black hole, rather than a slightly bigger version that was theorised to account for all its power.

Curtin University senior research fellow Dr Roberto Soria, who is part of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) and led the team investigating MQ1, said it was important to understand how stars were formed, how they evolved and how they died, within a spiral shaped galaxy like M83.

“MQ1 is classed as a microquasar - a black hole surrounded by a bubble of hot gas, which is heated by two jets just outside the black hole, powerfully shooting out energy in opposite directions, acting like cosmic sandblasters pushing out on the surrounding gas,” Dr Soria said.

“The significance of the huge jet power measured for MQ1 goes beyond this particular galaxy: it helps astronomers understand and quantify the strong effect that black hole jets have on the surrounding gas, which gets heated and swept away.

“This must have been a significant factor in the early stages of galaxy evolution, 12 billion years ago, because we have evidence that powerful black holes like MQ1, which are rare today, were much more common at the time.”

“By studying microquasars such as MQ1, we get a glimpse of how the early universe evolved, how fast quasars grew and how much energy black holes provided to their environment.”As a comparison, the most powerful microquasar in our galaxy, known as SS433, is about 10 times less powerful than MQ1.

Although the black hole in MQ1 is only about 100 kilometres wide, the MQ1 structure - as identified by the Hubble Space Telescope - is much bigger than our Solar System, as the jets around it extend about 20 light years from either side of the black hole.

Black holes vary in size and are classed as either stellar mass (less than about 70 times the mass of our Sun) or supermassive (millions of times the mass of our Sun, like the giant black hole that is located in the middle of the Milky Way).

MQ1 is a stellar mass black hole and was likely formed when a star died, collapsing to leave behind a compact mass.

The discovery of MQ1 and its characteristics is just one of the results of the comprehensive study of galaxy M83, a collection of millions of stars located 15 million light years away from Earth.

M83, the iconic Southern-sky galaxy, is being mapped with the Hubble Space and Magellan telescopes (detecting visible light), the Chandra X-ray Observatory (detecting light in X-ray frequencies), the Australia Telescope Compact Array and the Very Large Array (detecting radio waves).

ICRAR is a joint venture between Curtin University and The University of Western Australia which receives funding from the State Government of Western Australia.

Original Publication:

‘Super-Eddington Mechanical Power of an Accreting Black Hole in M83’ published in Science 27/2/2014. Full text available on request.

Contacts

Dr Roberto Soria
ICRAR - Curtin
Ph: +61 8 9266 9665
Email: roberto.soria@icrar.org

Kirsten Gottschalk
Media Contact, ICRAR
Ph: +61 8 6488 7771
M: +61 438 361 876
Email: kirsten.gottschalk@icrar.org

Monika Dudek
Public Relations Consultant, Curtin University
Ph: +61 8 9266 4241
M: +61 412 266 462
Email: media@curtin.edu.au

Source: ICRAR

Hubble Views Stellar Genesis in the Southern Pinwheel

Spiral Galaxy M83

Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

A photogenic and favorite target for amateur astronomers, the full beauty of nearby spiral galaxy M83 is unveiled in all of its glory in this Hubble Space Telescope mosaic image. The vibrant magentas and blues reveal the galaxy is ablaze with star formation. The galaxy, also known as the Southern Pinwheel, lies 15 million light-years away in the constellation Hydra.

The Hubble photograph captures thousands of star clusters, hundreds of thousands of individual stars, and "ghosts" of dead stars called supernova remnants. The galactic panorama unveils a tapestry of the drama of stellar birth and death spread across 50,000 light-years.

The newest generations of stars are forming largely in clusters on the edges of the dark spiral dust lanes. These brilliant young stellar groupings, only a few million years old, produce huge amounts of ultraviolet light that is absorbed by surrounding diffuse gas clouds, causing them to glow in pinkish hydrogen light.

Gradually, the fierce stellar winds from the youngest, most massive stars blow away the gas, revealing bright blue star clusters and giving a "Swiss Cheese" appearance to the spiral arms. These youngest star clusters are about 1 million to 10 million years old. The populations of stars up to 100 million years or older appear yellow or orange by comparison because the young blue stars have already burned out.

Interstellar "bubbles" produced by nearly 300 supernovas from massive stars have been found in this Hubble image. By studying these supernova remnants, astronomers can better understand the nature of the stars that exploded and dispersed nuclear processed chemical elements back into the galaxy, contributing to the next generation of new stars.

This image is being used to support a citizen science project titled STAR DATE: M83. The primary goal is to estimate ages for approximately 3,000 star clusters. Amateur scientists will use the presence or absence of the pink hydrogen emission, the sharpness of the individual stars, and the color of the clusters to estimate ages. Participants will measure the sizes of the star clusters and any associated emission nebulae. Finally, the citizen scientists will "explore" the image, identifying a variety of objects ranging from background galaxies to supernova remnants to foreground stars.

STAR DATE: M83 is a joint collaborative effort between the Space Telescope Science Institute and Zooniverse, creators of several citizen science projects including Galaxy Zoo, Planet Hunters, and the Andromeda Project (go to www.zooniverse.org to see the full list). The M83 project is scheduled to launch on Monday, January 13, 2014. People interested in exploring this remarkable image in more detail, and in directly participating in a science project, can visit http://www.projectstardate.org .

Source: HubbleSite

SN 1957D in M83: X-Rays Discovered from Young Supernova Remnant

SN 1957D in M83

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/STScI/K.Long et al.,
Optical: NASA/STScI

JPEG (392.3 kb) - Large JPEG (81.5 kb) - Tiff (43.2 MB)
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SN 1957D in M83 Animations

Over fifty years ago, a supernova was discovered in M83, a spiral galaxy about 15 million light years from Earth. Astronomers have used NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory to make the first detection of X-rays emitted by the debris from this explosion.

Named SN 1957D because it was the fourth supernova to be discovered in the year of 1957, it is one of only a few located outside of the Milky Way galaxy that is detectable, in both radio and optical wavelengths, decades after its explosion was observed. In 1981, astronomers saw the remnant of the exploded star in radio waves, and then in 1987 they detected the remnant at optical wavelengths, years after the light from the explosion itself became undetectable.

A relatively short observation -- about 14 hours long -- from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory in 2000 and 2001 did not detect any X-rays from the remnant of SN 1957D. However, a much longer observation obtained in 2010 and 2011, totaling nearly 8 and 1/2 days of Chandra time, did reveal the presence of X-ray emission. The X-ray brightness in 2000 and 2001 was about the same as or lower than in this deep image.

This new Chandra image of M83 is one of the deepest X-ray observations ever made of a spiral galaxy beyond our own. This full-field view of the spiral galaxy shows the low, medium, and high-energy X-rays observed by Chandra in red, green, and blue respectively. The location of SN 1957D, which is found on the inner edge of the spiral arm just above the galaxy's center, is outlined in the box (or can be seen by mousing over the image.)

The new X-ray data from the remnant of SN 1957D provide important information about the nature of this explosion that astronomers think happened when a massive star ran out of fuel and collapsed. The distribution of X-rays with energy suggests that SN 1957D contains a neutron star, a rapidly spinning, dense star formed when the core of pre-supernova star collapsed. This neutron star, or pulsar, may be producing a cocoon of charged particles moving at close to the speed of light known as a pulsar wind nebula.

If this interpretation is confirmed, the pulsar in SN 1957D is observed at an age of 55 years, one of the youngest pulsars ever seen. The remnant of SN 1979C in the galaxy M100 contains another candidate for the youngest pulsar, but astronomers are still unsure whether there is a black hole or a pulsar at the center of SN 1979C.

An image from the Hubble Space Telescope (in the box labeled "Optical Close-Up") shows that the debris of the explosion that created SN 1957D is located at the edge of a star cluster less than 10 million years old. Many of these stars are estimated to have masses about 17 times that of the Sun. This is just the right mass for a star's evolution to result in a core-collapse supernova as is thought to be the case in SN 1957D.

Multipanel with Optical, H-alpha & X-ray
Credit: Optical: NASA/STScI)

These results will appear in an upcoming issue of The Astrophysical Journal. The researchers involved with this study were Knox Long (Space Telescope Science Institute), William Blair (Johns Hopkins University), Leith Godfrey (Curtain University, Australia), Kip Kuntz (Johns Hopkins), Paul Plucinsky (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), Roberto Soria (Curtain University), Christopher Stockdale (University of Oklahoma and the Australian Astronomical Observatory), Bradley Whitmore (Space Telescope Science Institute), and Frank Winkler (Middlebury College).

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls Chandra's science and flight operations from Cambridge, Mass.

Fast Facts for SN 1957D in M83:

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/STScI/K.Long et al., Optical: NASA/STScI
Release Date: July 30, 2012

Scale: 9.5 arcmin on a side (~41,000 light years); Inset image: 1.6 x 1.3 arcsec (~120 x ~100 light years)

Category: Normal Galaxies & Starburst Galaxies
Coordinates: (J2000) RA 13h 37m 00.80s | Dec -29 51 58.60
Constellation: Hydra
Observation Date: 12 pointings between April 29, 2000 and Dec 28, 2011
Observation Time: 219 hours 49 min.
Obs. ID: 793, 2064, 12420, 12992-12996, 13202, 13241, 13248, 14332, 14342
Instrument: ACIS
Also Known As: NGC 5236
References: Long, K. et al, 2012, (in press) arXiv:1207.1555
Color Code: X-ray: (Red, Green, Blue); Optical inset (Red, Green, Blue)

M83: A Remarkable Outburst from an Old Black Hole

M83

Credit Left image - Optical: ESO/VLT; Close-up - X-ray: NASA/CXC/Curtin University/R.Soria et al., Optical: NASA/STScI/Middlebury College/F.Winkler et al.

JPEG (1 MB) - Tiff (46.4 MB)

Press Room: M83

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has discovered an extraordinary outburst by a black hole in the spiral galaxy M83, located about 15 million light years from Earth. Using Chandra, astronomers found a new ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX), objects that give off more X-rays than most "normal" binary systems in which a companion star is in orbit around a neutron star or black hole.

On the left is an optical image of M83 from the Very Large Telescope in Chile, operated by the European Southern Observatory. On the right is a composite image showing X-ray data from Chandra in pink and optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope in blue and yellow. The ULX is located near the bottom of the composite image.

In Chandra observations that spanned several years, the ULX in M83 increased in X-ray brightness by at least 3,000 times. This sudden brightening is one of the largest changes in X-rays ever seen for this type of object, which do not usually show dormant periods.

Optical images reveal a bright blue source at the position of the ULX during the X-ray outburst. Before the outburst the blue source is not seen. These results imply that the companion to the black hole in M83 is a red giant star, more than about 500 million years old, with a mass less than about four times the Sun's. According to theoretical models for the evolution of stars, the black hole should be almost as old as its companion.

Before and After Images in X-ray and Optical Light

Astronomers think that the bright, blue optical emission seen during the X-ray outburst must have been caused by a disk surrounding the black hole that brightened dramatically as it gained more material from the companion star.

Another highly variable ULX with an old, red star as a companion to a black hole was found recently in M31. The new ULXs in M83 and M31 provide direct evidence for a population of black holes that are much older and more volatile than those usually considered to be found in these objects.

The researchers estimate a mass range for the M83 ULX from 40 to 100 times that of the Sun. Lower masses of about 15 times the mass of the Sun are possible, but only if the ULX is producing more X-rays than predicted by standard models of how material falls onto black holes.

Evidence was also found that the black hole in this system may have formed from a star surprisingly rich in "metals", as astronomers call elements heavier than helium. The ULX is located in a region that is known, from previous observations, to be rich with metals.

Large numbers of metals increase the mass-loss rate for massive stars, decreasing their mass before they collapse. This, in turn, decreases the mass of the resulting black hole. Theoretical models suggest that with a high metal content only black holes with masses less than about 15 times that of the Sun should form. Therefore, these results may challenge these models.

This surprisingly rich "recipe" for a black hole is not the only possible explanation. It may also be that the black hole is so old that it formed at a time when heavy elements were much less abundant in M83, before seeding by later generations of supernovas. Another explanation is that the mass of the black hole is only about 15 times that of the Sun.

Fast Facts for M83:

Scale: Left image is 17.6 arcmin on a side (~77,000 light years); Close-up: 0.6 x 1.2 arcmin (~2600 x ~5200 light years)

Category: Normal Galaxies & Starburst Galaxies

Coordinates: (J2000) RA 13h 37m 00.80s | Dec -29° 51’ 58.60"
Constellation: Hydra
Observation Dates: 12 pointings between April 29, 2000 and Dec 28, 2011
Observation Time: 219 hours 49 min (9 days 3 hours 49 min)
Obs. IDs: 793, 2064, 12992-12996, 13202, 13241, 13248, 14332, 14342
Instrument: ACIS
Also Known As: NGC 5236
References: Soria, R. et al, 2012, ApJ (in press) arXiv:1203.2335
Kaur, A. et al, 2012, A&A 538, A49 arXiv:1109.1547
Middleton, M.J., et al, 2012, MNRAS, 420, 2969 arXiv:1111.1188
Distance Estimate: About 15 million light years

Hubble Image Showcases Star Birth in M83, the Southern Pinwheel

Credit: NASA, ESA, R. O'Connell (University of Virginia),

the WFC3 Science Oversight Committee, and ESO

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The spectacular new camera installed on NASA's Hubble Space Telescope during Servicing Mission 4 in May has delivered the most detailed view of star birth in the graceful, curving arms of the nearby spiral galaxy M83.

Nicknamed the Southern Pinwheel, M83 is undergoing more rapid star formation than our own Milky Way galaxy, especially in its nucleus. The sharp "eye" of the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) has captured hundreds of young star clusters, ancient swarms of globular star clusters, and hundreds of thousands of individual stars, mostly blue supergiants and red supergiants.

The image at right is Hubble's close-up view of the myriad stars near the galaxy's core, the bright whitish region at far right. An image of the entire galaxy, taken by the European Southern Observatory's Wide Field Imager on the ESO/MPG 2.2-meter telescope at La Silla, Chile, is shown at left. The white box outlines Hubble's view.

WFC3's broad wavelength range, from ultraviolet to near-infrared, reveals stars at different stages of evolution, allowing astronomers to dissect the galaxy's star-formation history.

The image reveals in unprecedented detail the current rapid rate of star birth in this famous "grand design" spiral galaxy. The newest generations of stars are forming largely in clusters on the edges of the dark dust lanes, the backbone of the spiral arms. These fledgling stars, only a few million years old, are bursting out of their dusty cocoons and producing bubbles of reddish glowing hydrogen gas.

The excavated regions give a colorful "Swiss cheese" appearance to the spiral arm. Gradually, the young stars' fierce winds (streams of charged particles) blow away the gas, revealing bright blue star clusters. These stars are about 1 million to 10 million years old. The older populations of stars are not as blue.

A bar of stars, gas, and dust slicing across the core of the galaxy may be instigating most of the star birth in the galaxy's core. The bar funnels material to the galaxy's center, where the most active star formation is taking place. The brightest star clusters reside along an arc near the core.

The remains of about 60 supernova blasts, the deaths of massive stars, can be seen in the image, five times more than known previously in this region. WFC3 identified the remnants of exploded stars. By studying these remnants, astronomers can better understand the nature of the progenitor stars, which are responsible for the creation and dispersal of most of the galaxy's heavy elements.

M83, located in the Southern Hemisphere, is often compared to M51, dubbed the Whirlpool galaxy, in the Northern Hemisphere. Located 15 million light-years away in the constellation Hydra, M83 is two times closer to Earth than M51.

Credit for Hubble image: NASA, ESA, R. O'Connell (University of Virginia), B. Whitmore (Space Telescope Science Institute), M. Dopita (Australian National University), and the Wide Field Camera 3 Science Oversight Committee

For additional information, contact:

Donna Weaver / Ray Villard
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
410-338-4493 / 410-338-4514
dweaver@stsci.edu / villard@stsci.edu

Robert O'Connell
University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.
434-924-7494
rwo@virginia.edu

Brad Whitmore
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
410-338-4474
whitmore@stsci.edu

Object Name: M83
Image Type: Astronomical

Credit for Hubble Image: NASA, ESA, R. O'Connell (University of Virginia), B. Whitmore (Space Telescope Science Institute), M. Dopita (Australian National University), and the Wide Field Camera 3 Science Oversight Committee

Credit for Ground-based Image: European Southern Observatory

Stellar Birth in the Galactic Wilderness

The blue and pink pinwheel in the center is the Southern pinwheel galaxy's main stellar disk, while the flapping, ribbon-like structures are its extended arms. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/VLA/MPIA

A new image from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer shows baby stars sprouting in the backwoods of a galaxy -- a relatively desolate region of space more than 100,000 light-years from the galaxy's bustling center.

The striking image, a composite of ultraviolet data from the Galaxy Evolution Explorer and radio data from the National Science Foundation's Very Large Array in New Mexico, shows the Southern Pinwheel galaxy, also known simply as M83.

In the new view, the main spiral, or stellar, disk of M83 looks like a pink and blue pinwheel, while its outer arms appear to flap away from the galaxy like giant red streamers. It is within these so-called extended galaxy arms that, to the surprise of astronomers, new stars are forming.

"It is absolutely stunning that we find such an enormous number of young stars up to 140,000 light-years away from the center of M83," said Frank Bigiel of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany, lead investigator of the new Galaxy Evolution Explorer observations. For comparison, the diameter of M83 is only 40,000 light-years across.

The new image is online at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/galex/20080416.html .

Some of the "outback" stars in M83's extended arms were first spotted by the Galaxy Evolution Explorer in 2005. Remote stars were also discovered around other galaxies by the ultraviolet telescope over subsequent years. This came as a surprise to astronomers because the outlying regions of a galaxy are assumed to be relatively barren and lack high concentrations of the ingredients needed for stars to form.

The newest Galaxy Evolution Explorer observations of M83 (colored blue and green) were taken over a longer period of time and reveal many more young clusters of stars at the farthest reaches of the galaxy. To better understand how stars could form in such unexpected territory, Bigiel and his colleagues turned to radio observations from the Very Large Array (red). Light emitted in the radio portion of the electromagnetic spectrum can be used to locate gaseous hydrogen atoms, or raw ingredients of stars. When the astronomers combined the radio and Galaxy Evolution Explorer data, they were delighted to see they matched up.

"The degree to which the ultraviolet emission and therefore the distribution of young stars follows the distribution of the atomic hydrogen gas out to the largest distances is absolutely remarkable," said Fabian Walter, also of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, who led the radio observations of hydrogen in the galaxy.

The astronomers speculate that the young stars seen far out in M83 could have formed under conditions resembling those of the early universe, a time when space was not yet enriched with dust and heavier elements.

"Even with today's most powerful telescopes, it is extremely difficult to study the first generation of star formation. These new observations provide a unique opportunity to study how early generation stars might have formed," said co-investigator Mark Seibert of the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington in Pasadena.

M83 is located 15 million light-years away in the southern constellation Hydra.

Other investigators include: Barry Madore of The Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington; Armando Gil de Paz of the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain; David Thilker of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore; Elias Brinks of the University of Hertfordshire, England; and Erwin de Blok of the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena leads the Galaxy Evolution Explorer mission and is responsible for science operations and data analysis. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, also in Pasadena, manages the mission and built the science instrument. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. The mission was developed under NASA's Explorers Program managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Researchers sponsored by Yonsei University in South Korea and the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) in France collaborated on this mission.

The Very Large Array is part of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, a facility of the National Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.

Additional information about the Galaxy Evolution Explorer is online at http://www.nasa.gov/galex and http://www.galex.caltech.edu